Sam Rockwell may not actually be in the 1989 film Lean on Me, but he’s still paid for the role he almost had.
The Oscar winner recently shared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he, Michael Imperioli and Kevin Corrigan drove together in a van to New Jersey to audition for a single line in the movie, starring Morgan Freeman and Beverly Todd.
While Rockwell ultimately landed the role, he admitted they “never got to my scene” during filming. “So they had to let me go because they didn’t want to pay me for a week,” he said, adding that they just paid him for the day. “They were like, we can’t pay him a week for one line.”
Imperioli was later cast for the role, but The White Lotus actor said, “I still get residual checks for that even though I’m not in it.”
This wasn’t the only time Rockwell and Imperioli were cast in the same role. He also told host Josh Horowitz that he was later called to star in 1998’s Celebrity, starring Kenneth Branagh, Judy Davis and Leonardo DiCaprio.
“I was part of DiCaprio’s entourage and I had a few lines and they said, ‘Woody [Allen, director] wants you to dye your hair bleach blonde.’ And I said, ‘I’m not dying my hair bleach blonde for like five lines. What are you crazy?’ And they’re like, ‘Woody wants you to do it,’ and I’m like, ‘Well I’m not doing it.’”
That’s when production told him, “‘Well Michael Imperioli was going to do it,’ ’cause he had dropped out, and I was replacing Michael because Michael was going to do a little pilot called Sopranos,” he added before quipping, “I heard it didn’t go anywhere.”
Rockwell ended up giving in: “I said, ‘All right, I’ll dye my hair.’ And I bleached my hair.”
As for Imperioli, The Sopranos definitely did go somewhere, running for eight seasons and winning multiple Emmys.
